If you’ve outgrown iPhoto, but you’re not a fan of Apple’s Aperture or the Mac App Store, you’re in luck. Adobe’s competitor, Lightroom, has reached version 4.0, and with that comes a substantial price cut.
Adobe’s Lightroom Journal Blog:
With over 300,000 downloads of the Lightroom 4 public beta we’ve heard some resounding feedback that photographers would like to start using Lightroom 4 on a daily basis and migrate their previous Lightroom work to this latest version. We’re also excited to announce new pricing for Lightroom 4: $149 for those new to Lightroom and $79 for the Upgrade and Student/Teacher editions. (You can upgrade from any version of Lightroom to Lightroom 4)
Keep in mind, Aperture 3 is available in the Mac App Store for only $79.99 — even for new users. If you’re deciding between the two, the price difference might tip the scale away from Adobe. If you’re familiar with Apple’s design language, you’ll probably want to stick with Aperture. If you’re a heavy Photoshop user, maybe it is worth the extra change to keep a somewhat consistent UI among your image manipulation apps. Whatever you decide, you’ll probably be pretty happy. We hear good things from professionals using both apps. You can’t go wrong.
If you want to run Lightroom 4.0, you’re going to need a 64-bit Mac running 10.6.8 or later with a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. More would be better, mind you. That old Core Duo MacBook isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Want to learn more about what’s different in Lightroom 4.0? Check out the extensive feature list, and then take a look at the buying guide to compare 4.0 to previous versions. As always, you can also try before you buy, so don’t hesitate to download that 384 MB DMG, and then tell us what you think in the comment section below.
Source: Lightroom Journel
Image Credit: Nick Ares
By the way, we’re live streaming during the iPad 3 event tomorrow. Check out the details.
